margin for error.“Here goes everything,” Sam muttered.
He released the cyclic, shut off the engines, pulled the collective up to its stops to slow the blades, and grabbed the collective again. Sam felt his belly shoot into his throat. With a crash, the helicopter struck the surface. He was thrown forward against the restraints. He felt the helicopter tipping right, thought, Collective!, and he jerked the control to the left. The effect was immediate. With the blades already fully pitched, the rotor assembly responded to Sam’s command by angling to the left and shifting the helicopter’s center of gravity. Water rushed up the windshield, horizontally at first, then diagonally as the helicopter pitched sideways. Sam tucked his chin to his chest, grasped the restraints with both hands, and set his jaw.He felt a bone-shaking jolt. White light burst behind his eyes. Then nothing.
HE AWOKE COUGHING. Water filled his throat. He jerked his head back, sputtered again, and forced his eyes open. Seeing only blackness, he felt a moment of panic. He squashed it, forced himself to breathe. He reached out, fingers extended, until he touched something solid-the tip of the cyclic. Gravity was pulling his head to the left. The helicopter was lying on its side; the river hadn’t been deep enough for the helicopter to completely capsize. That was the good news. The bad news was that he could hear water gushing into the cabin behind him. Already the level had reached his face.“Move, Sam,” he muttered.
He extended his right arm up, felt the upholstery of the passenger seat, and kept groping until his fingers found the safety belt. He latched on, then dipped his left hand beneath the water and punched the Release button on his restraints. He fell sideways, then brought his free hand up, joined it with his left hand, and chinned himself from the water until his knees reached the gap separating the cockpit from the cabin. Toes pointed, he shoved his legs through the opening and stretched to his full length until his feet touched the cabin’s bulkhead. He let go of the restraints and slid the rest of the way into the cabin. Now that he was standing hunched over, the water was at his chest. He extended his arms upward, felt the cabin door, and traced its outline with his fingertips. Water was spurting through the seams. He found the latch, tested it with slight downward pressure. It seemed operable.“Deep breath,” Sam told himself.
He sucked in a lungful of air, shoved the latch down, and slid the door open. Water crashed onto his head. He stumbled backward and slid beneath the surface. He let the wave shove him against the cabin wall, using the momentum to coil his legs beneath him. The pressure subsided. He kicked off, arms spread before him, hands grasping at the doorframe and pushing, feet kicking-His head broke the surface.
“Sam!” he heard. Remi’s voice.
He opened his eyes and turned in the water, trying to get his bearings.
“Sam!” she called again.
He turned again, saw her standing on the bank waving at him.
“-diles!” she yelled.
“What?” “Crocodiles! Swim!”
Sam did just that, pouring his last shred of energy into a sprint for the bank. He touched sand, shoved himself to his knees, then to his feet, then stumbled forward into Remi’s arms. Together they slogged up the sand onto level ground before collapsing.“Forgot about crocodiles,” Sam said a couple minutes later.
“Me too. I spotted them in the shallows about fifty yards upstream. The commotion must have woken them up. Are you okay? Any broken bones?”
“Don’t think so. How’d I do?”
Remi pointed toward the middle of the river. Sam focused on the spot, but it took several seconds for his eyes to adjust. All that remained visible of the helicopter was a branchlike shard of rotor blade jutting a half foot above the surface.“The rest of the chunks went into the water.”
“Just as I planned,” Sam said with a weary smile.
“Planned?”
“Hoped.
How’s the bell?”
“Aside from a few cracks in the wood, the crate’s surprisingly intact. I collected our packs and the guns. Let’s find some cover in case we have visitors.”
CHAPTER 21
WARY OF LEAVING TELLTALE DRAG MARKS, THEY CHOSE TO LEAVE the crate where it sat. Unintentionally, they’d dropped it in an ideal location-a dry rivulet near the riverbank. They covered it with scrub brush and then, using bundled foliage to obscure their tracks, they back-walked off the sandbar to solid ground and into a copse. A hundred feet inside the tree line they found a ten-by-ten-foot depression surrounded by fallen logs. It gave them a vantage point of not only the crate but the open ground down to the beach.
After probing the area with the muzzles of the rifles to drive off any snakes or sundry creepy crawlies, they settled into their bolt-hole. While Sam kept an eye out for visitors, Remi took inventory of their packs. “Remind me to send a thank-you letter to Ziploc,” she said. “Most everything is dry. The satellite phone looks okay.”“How much battery life?”
“Enough for one call, maybe two.”
Sam checked his watch. It was just after two in the morning. “It might be time to take Ed Mitchell up on his offer.” Remi fished Mitchell’s card out of her pack and handed it over. Sam dialed.A gravelly voiced Mitchell picked up on the fourth ring: “Yeah.”
“Ed, it’s Sam Fargo.”
“Huh?”
“Sam Fargo-your Mafia Island charter a couple days ago.”
“Oh, yeah . . . Hey . . .what the hell time is it?”
“About two. I don’t have much time. We need an evac.”
“That’s a word I ain’t heard in a while. You in trouble?”
“You could say that.”
“Where you at?”
“On the mainland, about four and half miles due east of Big Sukuti,” Sam replied, then gave him a description of the area.
“You guys get around,” Mitchell said. “Hang on a minute.”
Sam heard the sounds of paper crinkling, then silence. Mitchell came back on the line: “You know you’re sitting smack-dab in the middle of crocodile hell, don’t you?”
“We do now.”
“Can’t get a fixed wing in there. I’ll have to use a helo. That’ll take a little doing.”
“We’ll make it worth your while.” “I know you will, but that’s not my worry. I probably won’t get there until just after sunrise. Can you hang on?”“We’ll have to,” Sam said.
“Are folks going to be shooting at me when I get there?”
“No guarantees.”
There was ten seconds of silence, then Mitchell chuckled. “Ah, what the hell. Life’s a daring adventure or nothing at all.”
Sam laughed at this. “It is indeed.”
“Okay, keep your heads down. I’ll be there at first light. Just in case I’ve got some competition at the LZ, I’ll drop blue smoke so you don’t shoot at me.”
Sam disconnected. Beside him, Remi said, “Here, drink.”
Sam turned, took a deep gulp from the canteen, then accepted a piece of beef jerky. He recounted his conversation with Mitchell. Remi said, “That man’s on our permanent Christmas list. So he’ll be here in another four or five hours.”“With luck.”
They sat in silence, chewing for several minutes. Sam checked his watch. “It’s been forty minutes since we left the island.”
“You don’t think they-”
Sam held up his hand. Remi went quiet. After a few moments, she said, “I hear them. Two of them,
